The Kiwanis Charity Auction is set for Feb. 4 and Feb. 5. There is an almost official list of items elsewhere in this newspaper that you are now holding, or online at grantky.com under Marketplace. A couple items are changing and the Kiwanis members are still adding to the list.

When my daughter proudly presented me with an ultrasound of my grandson, to be honest, I didn’t see anything that made sense to me. I was excited at the prospects of my first grandchild, but I had no connection to the gray swirls pictured. I had no emotional bond to what my daughter told me was my grandson. But, sure enough, a few months later, he was born. He looked a lot different, but it was the same child that I had strained to see in the cloud of gray swirls, and he’s the same child who is one of my greatest joys today.

I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has supported me in Grant County. For the past 10 ½ years, I got to do what most people never get to do, which is to have their dream job! I got to fulfill a dream of coaching basketball at Grant County High School, my alma mater.

“Adding insult to injury” is an old adage I have grown up with and tend to use at odd times when it seems to fit. It fit this past Thanksgiving Eve for me. Yes, that is the day I received a speeding ticket near the Barnes Road exit of Interstate 75. Hopefully, I have learned a valuable lesson from this experience. Actually, I have learned two: first, you should always adhere to the speed limit. Second, there are more state policemen around than I realized.

Despite being covered in bright, white lights, the Christmas tree sat for several days in my living room naked!

I walked around it, moved it to one side, and even carried the ornaments up from the basement but it sat there until I couldn’t take it anymore and I stayed up past midnight last week hanging the ornaments so it would be finished.

When I was a lad, the children’s warden read stories to me about the country mouse and the city mouse and lots of other little mice that were good little mice. Saturday morning cartoons showed how big bad cats harassed the good little mice.

The biggest project that we undertake each year is the Guide to Grant County and we’ve already started on the guide for 2010.

This yearly publication is a listing of all elected officials, agencies, organizations, groups, churches, etc.

You may have already received a call from us asking for you to update your information. If you have not, please don’t wait for us to call you, give us a call at 859-824-3343 or by email at jbakernantz@grantky.com and let us know if the contact names and numbers for your group have changed during the last year.